


Ribs

by Curiaso



Series: Mr. and Mrs. Holmes [5]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Complicated Relationships, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Drug Withdrawal, Drugs, Dysfunctional Relationships, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Marriage, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Recreational Drug Use, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-09 22:54:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12898593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Curiaso/pseuds/Curiaso
Summary: “You don’t hit my brother, Matilda.” And he was standing now, looking as if he was ready to spread himself over his brother and protect the drug addict with his own body.“Actually,” She threw her pocket book on the table beside the doorway, walking over to the brothers. “Looks like I can, and I did.”orSoon to be spouses often bicker, but a brother with a drug-addiction, a brother with a eating disorder, and a woman who can't seem to knock common sense into men with high IQ's doesn't exactly help.





	1. Drug Addict

“Damn It Sherlock!” She ignored the discomfort of wet warmth beneath his arms as she gripped and dragged him by the armpits, face wrinkled in repugnance at the stench. “￡395, do you know how much it will cost to dry clean!?” Her heeled boots slid against the wooden floors, and she had to catch herself a few times, nearly dropping the lanky man. Eventually the unlikely pair reached the newly upholstered couch, and she hefted him on, first his torso, and soon followed by his legs. He was thin, but dense; much like his idiot brain, Matilda thought to herself as she shucked off the expensive coat, a gift to herself last Christmas. It made a repulsive sound as it hit the floor beside her foot, the bile on it soaking through from one side to another. 

A low moan sounded from the curly head, and she had the near insurmountable urge to smack it for all the pain the man who owned it was causing her fiance. Instead she marched to the kitchen that needed a retiling, and ignored the sloshing of the water as she filled one of her brand new glasses. Walking back left puddles of water in her wake.

“Drink.” She demanded, holding the glass with one hand as she smacked the cheek of her soon-to-be brother in-law. 

“MMmghf, piss off!” The words were terribly garbled, but she understood all the same. 

“You’re in my house, on my couch, wearing clothes that are paid by my fiance, about to take water from a glass I own. I recommend you shut up and drink, Sherlock.” He wouldn't take the glass, and when she pressed it against his lips he wouldn't drink. She could tell from his heart beat and the way his eyes seemed perfectly capable of being open that he would be fine, but her guess was that the high was at least partially there. 

She gave up, setting the glass down and sliding from her knees to her bum, and twisting away from the infuriating man taking up residence in her home. The pile of fabric beside her still smelled, her walls still needed a paint job, and her feet ached from the new shoes she was breaking in. And Sherlock was still on drugs. 

“Where’s Mycroft?” came out more like ‘Wh-rs Myc-of?’ but again, she understood. 

“He’s at his job, he has a job, a career like most healthy adults. Not that you would know anything about that.” She spoke tersely, “Will you drink the bloody water?” She lifted it to him, and he took it with a palsy hand. She made sure he had a semi-strong grip before letting go.

“You can’t keep coming to our house, half-drugged.” 

“I came beca-” 

“No, Sherlock. You came because you want to upset your brother, and you want to hurt him and make him feel poorly, and bask in his self-inflicted guilt over the choices you made for yourself.” She spoke in a rush, still facing away from him before spinning around, back onto her knees. It felt like there must be daggers in her eyes, it hurt to look at him so much. 

“And you can make all the excuses for why you’re here, but you and I both know the truth. Now I can either kick you out, Mycroft will come home, know you were here and still feel frustrated with you, himself, and me. Or--and this would be the adult thing, Sherlock--You can stay, and the two of you can talk, and you can be honest with why you want him to suffer through doing harm to yourself. Because this isn't about getting your mind to hush anymore. I know it and Mycroft knows it, but we don’t know if you know it. But it needs to stop because I will not have you slumped over and vomiting at my wedding, and I know you're absence will hurt your brother more than you could ever know, but your presence will hurt even more.. So choose, Sherlock.” She looked into eyes that echoed the ones she looked into every day, the pair that showed her a rare smile more often than anyone else, the ones that should be here but wasn't because he was out building power and influence. 

“I just need his perspective for an experiment I’m doing, it's about-” Her hand flashed out and hit him before she could help it, jumping to her feet.

“Shut the fuck up, you absolute idiot. Do you know how terribly painful it is for him to watch you do this to yourself? Do you take pleasure in it, you sick fuck!?” Her hand, again, smacked against stubble roughened skin. “You of all people know what this does to him-” Her fist clenched, thinking of how thin the body she slept with most nights had gotten in the past two years, how that bodies shoulders felt frail sometimes, how the ribs that stuck out were nothing like her own, the meals eaten not nearly as full as her stomach could take. It was an unspoken rule not to bring it up, to say nothing. So she served him more than he would for himself, and held his hand tight till he agreed to dessert. Packed lunches like the housewife she would never be, because the man she loved needed it. He needed someone stronger than him sometimes. 

“You should be ashamed, you should be ashamed to show you're face to me, to him, when you know the pain it causes, looking like this. Doing drugs, making lists so that he knows exactly what terrible things you've pumped yourself full of. He blames himself for every single high you go on, every needle you use. I could kill you, Sherlock Holmes. I could kill you and I wouldn't feel a single bit of sympathy for doing it, because as far as I can tell you're killing yourself already.” She ignored his face, shaken and red on one side as she stormed off, pocket book picked up without a thought, door slamming behind her. She didn't even feel the cold.


	2. Eating Disorder

Sherlock was still on the couch when she got home, freezing cold but less angry. Her coat was gone, but in its place sat Mycroft on one of the dining room chairs, beside his brother. 

“You hit him.” He spoke low, and she could hear the anger under the surface of the lake that Mycroft used to hide himself all too often. At work that lake froze over, at home it slowly thawed. Now it was in that in-between, where you couldn't trust it not to break if walked upon, but swimming was not exactly favorable. 

“Yes. He deserved it.” 

“You don’t hit my brother, Matilda.” And he was standing now, looking as if he was ready to spread himself over his brother and protect the drug addict with his own body.

“Actually,” She threw her pocket book on the table beside the doorway, walking over to the brothers. “Looks like I can, and I did.”

Mycroft’s eyes looked pale, washed out, like he’d never seen her before. 

“He’s hurting you, Mycroft.” She stood over the two, the blue-green light from a day coming to a close lighting her into a silhouette. SHe felt her lungs burn with anger she’d been fighting all day. “He hurts you every time he does this. Am I the only one who sees it? How much his choices make you into a cowering fool?” She’d never told him this. She felt naked, exposed. Like every shift in the air made by their combined breathing indicated some huge universal change. Like the life they’d slowly been building was either solidifying or crumbling. “You have thrown money, the best doctors, therapy, everything at him. You have tried weening, and reasoning, and you're parents. And none of it works, because it's not an addiction anymore, it's a weapon. He just wants to cut you again and again and again, right in the heart you like to pretend doesn't exist, but it does. It exists, Mycroft, and it’s mine, it’s my heart. I’m not letting him hurt you anymore without some fucking retribution.” And then she was crying, without her permission, shaking she was so angry. 

“She’s right.” A tiny voice sounded from behind Mycroft, and the older man slowly turned. “I deserved it. I…I just wanted to slow down, and then it stopped working.” There had been moments where he considered whether the drugs were dulling his senses, or if the drugs had worn off to a point where his senses were back to their original blunt blade. 

He could never be sure which one was truth, but the latter generally had the more appealing solution, and so he did not venture into the possibility of the former. If the drugs were dulling his senses, he had no excuse for them. If they were heightening them, then he had every excuse in the world. But after some time, it became clear what the truth was. “I knew it pissed you off, that I took them. And I knew you would never tell Mummy the details of it all. So I just kept doing them. I… I’m sorr-”

“Get out.” Both Matilda and Sherlock looked at Mycroft in shock. “Get out, Sherlock.” A beat passed, but afterwards the lanky man stood slowly, still weak, and walked out. The door made a hollow sound as it closed. 

“Mycroft, don’t-” But he was gone, into his study before she could bite the words out. And she was left with her fresh furniture, awaiting walls, new floors, and aching feet; to entertain herself, to mourn mistakes made. 

She knew going into the engagement and even before, that Mycroft was a difficult man to be around. He was the type that liked his way to prevail. And generally she could respect that. But when it left the world so colorless, it was difficult not to want to hit him too. One thing was certain; the Holmes brothers were not easy people to reason with. But patience was a virtue, and she could be very virtuous. 

She stripped, there in the sitting room, till she was cold and shivering once more in just her lacy underthings. She left the clothes there, in a small mound on the floor, much like a mimicry of her coat. She wanted reminders for him, as he left the next morning. She padded to their shared bedroom, before snapping the bra off, and sliding the pants down. Examining herself in the mirror, she traced her ribs, her wrist, the delicate bones of her ankle with grey eyes. 

Waiting on her dresser was a small bottle of perfume; French, a gift. She wore it only for special occasions and so tonight it spread to cover her pulse points. She ignored the way her silken robe called out to her, and instead left the bedroom with nothing but her hair to cover herself with. 

The door to his study creaked only slightly, and she made a little note that it was unlocked, a good sign. 

“Not tonight, Matilda.” His objection was ignored, as she climbed into his lap. 

“Mycroft,” She wrapped her arms around him, settling into his warmth. They sat like that for a moment, and the wetness at the junction of her shoulder, where his eyes rested was politely ignored. “Touch my ribs.” His hands stayed at her hips, so she untangled her arms and brought his fingers just beneath her breasts, still keeping her head on his shoulder, and his on her own. “You feel them? How they feel strong, and there's a little layer of fat and muscle?” She slid her own hands in the folds of his suit jacket, beneath the vest he wore and held his own ribs in her thin fingered hands. 

“But yours, my love, are delicate. They are covered by nothing but the clothes you wear and the skin you are in. And it isn't healthy, Mycroft. I can’t let his choices make you think this is okay anymore.” Trickles of tears that had gathered at her neck overflowed down her back. “I love you, you genius, incase you can’t tell.” His hands grabbed her just a tiny bit harder. “I love you with every rib in my body. Every breath I posses. It isn’t logical to love this much, but I do. And I hate him for this,” She pressed gently at his ribs. “I hate him for this, and I won’t allow it. Not anymore. So I am sorry if you don’t like that I hit him, but I watch him carve flesh from you every day. And it’s like torture doing nothing.” 

That night Mr. Holmes, and Ms. Aaker, soon to be Mrs. Holmes, did nothing but keep their hands on one another's sides.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. If you are enjoying this story, feel free to read the rest of the stories within this series. If you really liked it, please drop a Kudos, or a Comment (it kind of makes my day.) If you want to save this story for later, or keep up with this series, consider Bookmarking. 
> 
> Till next time,  
> Curiaso


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